future innovation lab

organized by:

Future Innovation Lab is an annual lab created by Garage Stories and the Mobile World Capital Barcelona to explore the potential of emerging technologies to build use cases for good. We aim at fostering new connections between creatives and technologists from all over the world to generate innovative ideas that later are implemented with the help of our network of worldwide partners. In short, our goals is to:

Shape technology for good to build a better tomorrow

Turning COVID challenged as an opportunity to build a worldwide community

we celebrated our first edition in 2021:

first edition 2021
hack the hospital

HTH

THE CHALLENGE

How can we reduce the negative impact of long term paediatric patients (and families) experience at the hospital? In short: Make children's stay at the hospital as enjoyable and less traumatic as possible

The lab, lead by the innovation unit of Hospital Sant Joan de Déu (Barcelona) and Boston Children's Hospital (Boston) with the support of Cisco, IBM, GSMA, CaixaBank, Barcelona Tech City, 5G Barcelona and MedVR, will took place May 21 - 23 in a hybrid format. The two winners, SQUISHY and Boost Board, were presented at the Mobile World Capital and are currently being developed at both hospitals.

WINNERS

Squishy

Squishy is a 360 camera with sensors that allows to detect and express the patients' emotions; friends & family will be able to create real-time first-person experiences for the patient. Team: Aileen Kassing, Elisabet Tremps, Fiona Vives, Mar Porras, Skye Kim and Susanna Cabos.

Boost Board

Boost Board aims to foster social connections at the hospitals using mixed reality to allow patients to share messages and co-create interactive experiences! Team: Menno van Rijn, Kathy Wang, Chloe(Ziqing) L., Eduardo Escobar, Maria Mayol and Carolina Moltó.

numbers

THANK YOU!

9.687 site visits during the event
14.120 messages sent on Slack
511 people involved
25 countries
27 press mentions
6.736.028 total audience
95.449 € overall rating
33 projects

Download full report HERE.

kid experts

For this edition we worked with real paediatric patients from both hospitals who helped us define the challenges based on their real experience and performed as mentors during the Hackathon. For the final jury, we involved kids from hospitals all over the world to vote for their favourite ideas.

SPEAKERS

Most of our speakers and C-level executives from some of the most relevant companies around the globe. This is part of our strategy to forge potential partnerships that make the implementation of the winning ideas easier.

hack
the planet

(and humans' health)

powered by:

HTP

THE CHALLENGE

How can we help society adapt their lifestyle and consumption patterns to improve humans' health by taking better care of the planet? We want to transition from environmental awareness into action.

WINNER

Viridis

Viridis (@viridisearth) is a blockchain-based Digital Product Passport that allows consumers to earn tokens by making more sustainable consumption decisions. All of this while helping eco-friendly companies drive brand value! Team: Cindy Moncada, Andrea Amenta and Natalia Palacios

Collection "skinprints 2020" by meliss (they/she), a queer multi media artist and birth doula loosely based between brooklyn and paris. they are fascinated by unintentional readymades that are found at the intersection of our natural and human made spaces.

SPEAKERS

format

masterclasses

The two weeks leading up to the main event, we organize 8 to 10 virtual live sessions with experts the subject of interest of the Hackathon but also storytelling, design, psychology, design futures, etc; so as to inspire and prepare participants for the Hackathon.

Most of our speakers are C-level professionals from organitzations such as the World Health Organization, Harvard, GSMA, CISCO, MIT, Columbia, Google and Disney.

participants

The lab is open to anyone with an interest in building solutions for good with emerging technologies, from creatives, storytellers, educators, technologists, psychologists, etc!

The outreach is done via partner organizations (universities, research labs, focus groups, etc); as we prioritize quality over quantity since the goal is to effectively develop and implement the best ideas.

We'll normally accept up to 300 participants, that later we help form in teams between 4 to 6 people through several events of networking.

the hackathon weekend

During the weekend, participants work remotely following a series of masterclasses with experts in design thinking, prototyping, and business modelling and communication, plus the help international mentors who assist them remotely.

In 2021, participants also counted with the support of the KIDS' EXPERTS, a group of paediatric patients from Hospital Sant Joan de Déu (Barcelona) and Boston Children's Hospital (Boston), who were also part of the final jury.

the outcome

Our Hackathons have a humanistic approach: we are interested in new ideas with a high value proposal and feasible in the short / mid term.

We want to explore the potential of emerging technologies (XR/AI/5G), but we are not so interested in participants' capacity to code an impressive app in 72 hours, but their capacity to empathise with the challenge and come up with innovative and feasible ideas with a clear value proposition to be developed and implemented in collaboration with our partners.